


Peeta Wanted Them So Badly…and so Did I

by marbee



Series: It Can Be Good Again [4]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Epilogue Mockingjay, everlark drabble, mentions of toast babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:15:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24036478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marbee/pseuds/marbee
Summary: For years Peeta Mellark had been dropping hints that he wanted to start a family....And it took years for Katniss to come to realize that maybe she wanted that too.
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Series: It Can Be Good Again [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1613773
Comments: 3
Kudos: 71





	Peeta Wanted Them So Badly…and so Did I

**Author's Note:**

> All mistakes are mine!

For years Peeta Mellark had been dropping hints that he wanted to start a family.

Five years after we found each other again, he made a lot of mentions of our neighbors’ children. He would comment how nice it is to see kids running around with Haymitch’s geese in the Village and how every year it seems to be more and more people in District 12. One time at dinner, he mentioned how he saw on that new anchor on the national news, the one that replaced Cesar Flickerman after the Revolution, that the birth rates in Panem have gone up, how that must mean the quality of life is improving are getting better. I arched an eyebrow, Peeta’s always known my fears about starting a family, I let him know when he proposed to me. It didn’t feel right not to let him think that would be a possibility. But I couldn’t help but give him a knowing smile, _a little too on the nose there_ _Peeta_.

It was only after ten years; did he ask me directly about having children. We were lying in bed, my head was pressed against his bare chest, his index finger slowly running up and down my side.

“Have you ever thought about having kids, Katniss?” he asks so quietly, that I almost don’t even hear him.

“I think you know where I stand on the subject,” I say hoping that will shut him up. We had a good day today, our first good day in a while. I don’t want to have to spoil it.

“Things have changed Katniss.”

Without thinking, I say as I turn away from him, “Yeah but we haven’t.”

Which is a cruel reminder how in the past month, Peeta’s flashbacks had been making themselves more frequent. He had actually broken the back of a kitchen chair. After that Peeta thought it would have been best for him to stay at our apartment above the bakery. We don’t use it often, only during the peak weeks at the bakery. We normally stay there together but not this time. Peeta was there for about three weeks. He even let his service dog, Charlie, stay home with me. Even with Charlie, I was doing no better either, my nightmares were running rampant. Without Peeta by my side, I would wake up in the middle of the night screaming. This past month was the hardest month we had ever experienced in the last ten years.

And now I had just made it worst.

Without fail, I feel Peeta wrap his arms around me and whispers to himself, “we have each other and the book. I think it would be okay.”

I don’t know how Peeta has put up with me all these years.

On the fifteen year, something changed. I can’t really pinpoint when things started to change. Maybe it started when we agreed to watch Delly Cartwright’s (now Johnson) baby, Nathan, so her and her husband could have a date night. Peeta had Nathan wrapped up against his chest in the sling as he baked the bread for that night’s meal. It was quite picturesque. Peeta with a child, wild chocolate curls and all, in his arms and two golden dogs, ole Charlie and his new service dog, Zigi, lounging by his feet with the window open, looking out at our thriving garden.

Or maybe it was when we had to rush to the emergency room at the District’s clinic because Peeta managed to get himself a nasty burn from the caramel he was making. We only had to spend a few hours there, but Peeta being Peeta, he had to make a new friend. There was this little girl, could have been no more than nine years old and who I am assuming is her older sister. She couldn’t have been no older than sixteen. You could tell the little girl had been crying and after a bit of coaxing, she told Peeta she been jumping on the bed and had fallen off the bed and broken her arm and that her parents had gone to another District to visit some family members. That’s when I noticed how worried the older sister looked, their parents trusted her to watch over her little sister and failed. I could relate but I didn’t know how to console her. I couldn’t find the word. But Peeta, Peeta knew exactly what to tell them, even when he had third degree burns on his forearm, he managed to console them. Even offered them to stop by the bakery with their parents for some cookies and drinks on the house.

I knew Peeta wanted children badly…but I have come to realize that, deep down, so did I. It wasn’t an easy decision to make but I knew in my bones that it was something that I wanted too.

So that evening, I am perched on the edge of our bed. I wait for Peeta to finish his nighttime routine, which mostly consists of massaging his leg and applying salves to his burns. I wait until I hear him shuffle under the sheets, I feel his warm hand at the dip of my waist, calling me to bed.

As I lay down, I say “Maybe one wouldn’t hurt.”

His hand stiffens a bit as he asks me to repeat myself.

I turn to look at him and cup his cheek, “I want to have a baby, Peeta.”

His ocean blue eyes bore into my charcoal grey ones, “You want to have a baby. Real or not real?”

I lean over and press a kiss against his slightly chapped lips, “Real.”

There’s that hunger again. That hunger that overtook me on the beach during the Quarter Quell and that was present when Peeta and I shared our first real night together. It is a hunger that will never be completely quenched but keeps me alive all the same.

And later that night, I dream of two—a girl with dark hair and blue eyes and a boy with golden curls and grey eyes running around in the green meadow. I picture little toddler legs peaking from underneath the prep tables, pudgy handprints all over the walls, two little braids and combovers with a stubborn cow lick. But I also see nightmares and wide eyes, difficult conversations and tears, I see little boys and girls staring at Peeta and I as we walk them to the school yard. It won’t be easy but Peeta is right, everything will be okay. We will get through it.

And they will be braver than Peeta and I ever were.

**Author's Note:**

> I recently marathoned all the movies and I am rereading the books and decided to expand on the epilogue a bit!


End file.
